A young woman in our church is doing her best to live a quiet and godly life before her husband. She wants to be faithful in obedience to God in reaching her husband for Christ. These are her words: “I want him to know that in accepting Christ nothing is lost.”

Many people fear what they will lose. Some are deceived into believing that trust in Christ will make our lives filled with suffering and trouble. In other words, miserable.

French theologian Francois Fenelon asks: “What are you afraid of? Of following too much goodness, finding a too-loving God?” It’s worth asking isn’t it? What are you afraid of?

Are you afraid that you will experience too much peace and joy?Are you afraid that you might surround yourself with a too-loving congregation? Will you be overcome with too much patience, too much kindness, or too much faithfulness?

Satan would convince us that the Christ life is a life of misery when in fact it is a life of joy, blessing, and peace. This is the fruit that God’s Spirit produces within us.

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Reminds me of a sermon I heard many years ago on the same theme with an approach from a slightly different direction. E. Edward Jones, Galilee Baptist Church in Shreveport, was on KWKH radio at his usual Sunday night time, the time when I was usually heading home from evening church, and he was in fine form. The sermon: “What in Hell do You Want?” “There’s no peace in hell,” he said, “No love, joy, no satisfacion, nothing good, so, what in hell do you want?” Or, to paraphrase Pascal, what does one have to lose by surrendering it all to Jesus? The release of all concerns as expressed by that young lady are found in absolute surrender. How’s that for a genuine paradox? To be absolutely free from all the concerns of “what I may lose” by following Christ, all one has to do is absoultely surrender all.